Senior Assistant State's Attorney
Robert Brennan
said he will recommend Girasulo serve 18 years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 23 by Judge John Kavanewsky Jr.

In November 2002, Girasulo pleaded guilty to 10 counts of home-improvement fraud, seven counts of first-degree larceny and a number of other larceny charges.

Girasulo was accused of fraud totaling $201,091 since April 1999 doing business with more than a dozen homeowners in Fairfield, Easton, Ansonia, Stratford, Redding, Derby, Ridgefield, Norwalk, New Haven and Guilford.

He was sentenced to probation on the condition that he make restitution to the clients he ripped off.

Girasulo, however, used money that should have paid back those clients to gamble in Atlantic City and the
Mohegan Sun Casino
, Brennan said.

The prosecutor said that even after promising a judge he would no longer do home-improvement contracting, Girasulo defrauded a Stamford couple last year, wrote bad checks to a Woodbury lumber company and defrauded a Ridgefield woman of more than $10,000 for a project, he said.

Girasulo - who had no home- improvement license, but advertised himself as a home remodeler - would agree to do a job, but told the client he would need a substantial down payment in order to buy materials for a job, according to police. Once Girasulo got the money, the client never saw him again, police said.

In the case of an Easton woman, Girasulo took apart her kitchen, shut off the electricity and cut a huge hole in the side of the house for a bay window, but never returned to finish the job, police said. It cost the woman and her husband $40,000 to repair the damage.